The Ringer NBA Show - Clippers Gonna Clip, Nuggets Kill Them With Joy, and Bam Goes the Dynamite with Ben Golliver | Group Chat

Episode Date: September 16, 2020

Justin Verrier, Jonathan Tjarks, and Rob Mahoney are joined by The Washington Post’s Ben Golliver to decompress from the dopamine overdose of the Nuggets’ historic win over the Clippers (0:50) and Bam Adebayo’s near-unbelievable Game 1–winning block against the Celtics (47:12). Hosts: Justin Verrier, Jonathan Tjarks, and Rob Mahoney Guest: Ben Golliver Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. The NFL is officially back and we've got round the clock coverage to get you through this season. We're publishing shows from Sunday through Friday every week, including the Bill Simmons podcast and the Ryan Rusillo podcast, and adding to the Ringer NFL show with Warren Sharp, Chris Vernon, Ryan Chazier, Cole Wright, and Joe House all on the slate. But the fantasy fans out there, the Ringer fantasy football show is publishing three times a week on its own feed to help you get your line upset. You can listen and subscribe to all of the Ringer's fans. NFL coverage on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to group chat, the ringers weekly NBA group discussion where we talk about

everything from historic chokes to babies eating cheeses. It is 8 a.m. Pacific time. It is quite early, but this is a special occasion. I am Justin Varyer and joining me today, Jonathan Charks. What's up, guys? Rob Mahoney. Hello. And the bubble boy himself, straight from Orlando, from his hotel room, which he has

and left in weeks and weeks and weeks from the Washington Post, Ben Gulliver. It's great to be here. I see how you do it, Justin. It's like a sunrise edition of the Clippers choked. We just have to get the takes off as soon as possible. Is that right? Absolutely. The fans get what they want, you know, and what they want is us talking about a disaster at 8 o'clock in the morning. We're going to get to the other game that was played last night between the Celtics and the heat, which I thought was going to be an all-timer, but it was quickly trumped by the Los Angeles Clippers. They lost 104 to 89 in Game 7.

I'm still pretty stunned about this. Ben, you were there last night. What was like, can you just give us, like, the scene and, like, what it was like after that buzzer, like, finally sounded? Well, so this is going to be a very dangerous take as I'm on here with three of, like, the brightest basketball minds of all time, and I'm about to go. full Jim boiling on you. But I really think that this game and this series just kind of came down to like who wanted it more. And I think really you can't separate on court and off court when it

comes to the bubble because if you win that game, you're signing up for another roughly two weeks of life in the bubble. And you heard from Lou Williams after the game where he's, you know, just kind of frustrated and he's counting the number of days it's been since he's seen his daughters, right? And you've got, you know, Paul George trying to wrap his mind around the end of a season. And he doesn't even know if it was a championship or bus season. And you just just see this team that's just like really scatterbrained off the court, looking overwhelmed by the moment. Obviously, you had some pretty serious situations for Lou Williams and Montrez-Herald during their time in the bubble where they had to leave and come back. And I think that was absolutely

a contributing factor to the Clippers' lack of chemistry. But all of that off-court stuff, it transferred directly on the court. Everybody from both teams said it. There was no question who had the better on-court chemistry. It was no question who was fighting harder late in these games to pull out the victories who was executing better during the pressure moments. And I actually pin it, frankly, the clipper side of things, I pin it on their superstar level players. I didn't think there was going to be a situation where we were going to come out of these playoffs and say, you know what, Kauai Leonard, you let everybody down.

I thought it was going to be more well, Paul George didn't step up, or maybe they couldn't figure out the pecking order stuff. And there was only one ball to go around for so many guys. But I think ultimately, when they look back on their experience and I think about their two months here, Kauai Leonard never seemed to. to really enjoy himself. You know, LeBron did a lot of complaining earlier, but he's started to settle in, get into a groove, his wife's here, he feels comfortable. With the clippers, they just kind of felt on edge. I think it expressed itself with all the trash talk

they did to the Portland Trailblazers and to Luca and to Nicola Yokicich. And by the end of it, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they're kind of relief, they're going home at this point. Well, that's interesting, though, because you're there and we're projecting onto a lot of these guys that maybe the bubble is having effects, maybe some of this like family stuff at home for some these clippers guys are affecting how they're playing. Can you see a noticeable difference between how like some of the clippers are operating and like maybe another team that's thriving, like the heat? I've actually thought about power ranking the teams that actually like the bubble because it's a real thing. Like don't think this is just a talking point, right? Every morning I have to

wake up and I've got to take my temperature. I've got to take my pulse ox reading. I've got to go get tested. I've got to make sure I'm wearing a mask. I've got to go eat, you know, a pretty lonely breakfast. I've got to make sure I'm wearing my credential. I've got to make sure I'm wearing this auxiliary alarm. They'll start beeping if I get too close to people. And none of these things individually sound that annoying. But when you do it every single day, and when you're the players and you've got to hop on the bus every single day and you've got to go back to your hotel and shower in your hotel room rather than at the arena. So you're all sticky for 45 minutes. and you've got to answer questions on these weird Zoom calls, all of it is a pretty

annoying experience. And so if I was going to rank the teams, I don't think anyone hated the bubble more than the 76ers. I'm pretty sure that they had like 15 private jets just lined up, ready to take them out of here, right? But when you look at the Eastern Conference, there's no question to me, the two teams that settled in and were happy in the bubble more than any other teams were Miami and Boston. I think that they've just taken a slow and steady day-by-day disciplined approach. It kind of fits again with their on-court character. And, you know, you look at some of these favorites that have gone home early, whether it's Milwaukee or the Clippers, neither one of those teams seemed particularly comfortable. And there were red flags

showing actually early in their bubble play. You go back to the seating games, Milwaukee really couldn't finish games. They weren't reaching top speed for their offense. They weren't, you know, clicking chemistry-wise around Yannis particularly well. And same deal with the Clippers. I mean, they were shodding out guys like Reggie Jackson and Joe Keem Noah. If those guys aren't red flags playing big minutes for your team early on, I don't know what is. And so I think for both those teams, the lack of comfort in the bubble combined with just some of these variables off court that we're talking about, I think it contributed to their early exits. Ben, I got to say, if that's going full boiling, Jim Boylan would still have a job. Like, that was actually a pretty reasonable take.

Well, I was just worried what I said, you know, who wants it more, right? seems kind of like I'm about to put a punch clock on this podcast or something like that, you know, but I think that ultimately Will is a major deciding factor here. No, I mean, I think that's kind of the question of the clippers this entire season. It's like, maybe you could write this off to how things have gone down in the bubble, how like prepared they were for this unique situation, but we've seen this all season long. They just didn't really play up to their talent level, didn't really seem like they were always on the same page.

And so in a lot of ways, maybe this is like an outlier situation, but maybe this is ultimately what was going to happen regardless. Rob, what did you see last night? I just thought it was weird that, you know, to Ben's point, nobody on the Clippers was blameless in this. Like, it really did start with Kauai with, you know, you could go even with Doc. You could go pretty much all up and down the roster

and everyone screwed up in some pretty significant way. And then that just created all kinds of compounding problems. You had, you know, bad offensive process, which led to, you know, an unstable, an instable defense, which then led to just a complete disaster. And, you know, I was looking at the numbers and for context, over these last three games, the Nugas scored about 115 points for 100 possessions. The Mavericks this season scored about that and had the highest offensive rating of all time.

So, like, that's the level we're talking about of a defense that has Kauai, that has Paul George, that has Pat Beverly. Yes, that also has Lou Will and Montres Harrell and these other lesser defenders. But just that they were scrambling and panicked so awesome. often against Nicola Yolkich and Jamal Murray, two guys who are really good, but I didn't expect to have the clippers this far off balance. Okay, so I think you can connect these two ideas like this. Kauai not being a quote-unquote leader, you can see it in the court because it makes guys

like Lou Williams and Doc Rivers so valuable, right? Because like when the bubble thing happened when the strike, it was Lou Williams telling people what the clippers are going to do, not Kauai, right? For the Lakers, that was LeBron. And conversely, it was Doc Rivers just kind of had to take the leadership ball on the team. What that means is now that makes Lou Williams and Doc Rivers very valuable to Kauai in a way those guys wouldn't be for LeBron. And now Kauai is kind of held hostage decisions those two guys make on his team

because they do the leadership for him. And like to me, like watching the series, how can you play Montres Harrell on Nicola Yokic? Here's the thing. If you're going to double Nicola Yokic, the best passing big man of all time anyways, at that point, why not go small and spread him out on offense? If you're going to play a guy who can't guard Yokic and can't score on him, you're cooked. That to me was just mind-boggling.

They kept doing it over and over and over again in these games. So you put the blame more on Doc than some of these superstars who didn't show up. Kauai and Paul George combined were 10 for 38. I don't know if you heard that yet. But what I'm saying is like Kauai not being a leader makes him vulnerable to Doc making poor coaching decisions. It's all connected. Sure. I think you could frame this box score and put it in a choke hall of fame. I mean, I think that really jumped out to me, not only just the field goal percentages from Kauai and from Paul George, but the lack of free throw attempts, right? And Doc was trying to get at this. He actually kind of put some of the blame on his players and saying, hey, this is a conditioning issue. I had to continually sub these guys out. But the stat that jumped out to me, one combined free throw. throw for Paul George and Kauai Leonard and something like 82 combined minutes that they're on the court. Now, obviously, a lot of those minutes are together, but that's completely unacceptable.

They both wind up being like minus 20, minus 21 in the minutes on the court. And you're in that frantic mode where, let's say you're Kauai Leonard and you've been listening to Doc and you believe everything. But now you're in the fourth quarter and here the nuggets go again, right? And you're looking around and saying, do I really trust Lemon Pepper Lou or do I trust myself, the reigning finals MVP to like take this game over right and kawai could not get to the basket i don't know if it's his leg i don't know if it's just his general fatigue accumulation i don't know if it's his mentality he did look shook at times during the bubble and by the way he made a lot of bad late game plays you go all the way back to the decision to pass to paul george in the opening game

game against the lakers he doesn't double devon booker when devon booker hits the game winner he allows the switch on luca dantsich's game winner i mean he was a mess late in games uh really throughout the bubble. But in this one particularly, he just had no field, no command of the game. There was no takeover like we saw at points of last year's playoffs. And so that's why I pin a lot of this on him. I definitely don't think that Doc is blameless. And maybe the best way to frame this question is, if you're Steve Balmer, who are you able to blame? Because remember, this guy not only traded 95 draft picks to get Paul George, but he also bought Kawhi Leonard a million backpacks to hand out to all the school kids of Los Angeles. He's been investing in these guys every possible way you can do it.

You know, he's the one been driving the ship. He's probably the most committed owner in the entire NBA. This is not good enough. This is not a Tillman-Fortita situation where he's like going to meetings with Donald Trump and whining about his player's salaries and then just being too cheap to pay Mike D'Antoni. This is a guy who has like every resource at his disposal to kind of upgrade this thing. And this is the biggest disappointment in franchise history. This is worse than 2015. This is worse than any of the other early flameouts. So how does Balmer respond? Does the same guy who's jumping around and sweating through his t-shirts on the Microsoft stage just going to be like, yeah, let's run it back with Doc and Kawhi and Paul George and Kauai and Lou Williams and just see if

this thing works again next year? I'd be surprised if he did. I bet you he's furious right now. Well, let's talk about the doc thing for a second and specifically the idea that the clippers weren't conditioned because of the situation in the bubble, didn't have the continuity that they wanted, which is what he said post-game, which these are both valid things and about as doc as it gets. The coach of the team that his Celtics

without Kendrick Perkins have still never lost a playoff series, and much like that, these clippers, when properly conditioned, have still never lost a playoff series. Did you know that he's not a real doctor? It's another docism. This is news to me.

But the reality is they were up 3-1 in the series and got wrecked. You know, this turned out to be a worse matchup for them than they expected, but they played way too casually. They left points on the floor all over the place because they weren't as direct as they needed to be. Because as sharks alluded to, they didn't have the rotations in terms of the bigs that they needed to have. They really let themselves be vulnerable to this. And I think that there's going to have to be some owning of that this offseason if you're going to move forward. So here's my thought.

I think we can all agree maybe the clippers weren't quite as good. as we all thought they would be. But that means it's even more important that they have a really quick, adaptable coach who makes quick lineup adjustments and playoff series. I mean, what's the common thread in 2015, down 3-1? What's the common, like, Doc is the first coach to lose three series up 3-1.

I mean, that's incredible. I was actually texting someone at the ringer who has a long history with Doc in Boston, and he gave me a very long list of things Doc didn't do right over the years. To me, you just kind of have, have to move on from him because the margins are so thin. You've just got to have a coach you can make these adjustments quicker because if you don't, you're going to lose. I think my question is, is it just Doc? Or can we have confidence in this big two that they've

assembled or Kauai assembled for them going forward? I mean, Kauai at times, it felt like his shot was flat, as Ben alluded to, maybe there was something to do with like his conditioning or maybe because of the long break, whatever load management he needs to do to get himself ready, got disrupted and he can never get himself right. I don't know. But Paul George, I think we have enough of a track record on this guy to really start to question whether or not he could bring in the playoffs. It's obviously a much more complicated discussion now because he talked about having depression and anxiety earlier on in the bubble and I have like all this empathy in the world for that. But, you know, these are like real world implications and like these are actual things that they're

going to have to deal with it. I don't know if you could rely on George in the situation. She just like disappears. And if you need a second star, I don't know if he's ever really shown himself to be that outside of what, maybe last regular season at best. Well, here's the thing. You kind of have to rely on those guys, right? You can fire the coach. You can't fire Kowai and Paul George. But you could trade them. For the record, too, I mean, I don't think we're quite at DefCon fire Doc Rivers. Like coaches make mistakes all the time in playoffs. If the Nuggets had lost their first round series, There were stages where Michael Malone was getting all kinds of heat for things he was doing against the series against the jazz or in the series against the jazz.

Yes, he adapted. Yes, the Nuggets survived. Yes, they continue to survive. But like these guys make mistakes. That part is okay. I think what Doc gives you in a big picture sense in terms of bringing a team together in terms of communication, in terms of managing personality, those things matter. They weren't at their top level during this playoff run, but they could be next year, which again, you're really targeting this window. you're saying, can we win a title while we have these guys? I think Doc still allows you to do that. But you're saying like Doc has these intangible qualities. Did they look intangible in this team? Did this team look well coached this year?

Manage roster-wise, personality-wise, conditioning-wise? No, but again, I think there are other circumstances to account for. There's a lot going on in a sample size of one, right? Like, if we're just looking at the result, and again, the series could have broken a couple different ways. And we are way too deep into this podcast to not have talked about the Denver Nuggets and how good they were really in this series yet. Well, if Jamal Murray was, well, no, really, I think if Jamal Murray wasn't incredible against a really good defense at times, if Yokic wasn't playing, you know, some of the best basketball he's played, although he's a guy

who has already established himself as being a really good playoff performer, they, they punched the clippers. And yes, it's a problem that they didn't respond. It's certainly a problem that they're communicating the things they are now post-game, you know, Paul George saying, saying, oh, we didn't expect to be a championship or bust this season when he had literally said they were a championship or bust like three months ago. There's all kinds of these little red flags. I'm not saying Doc is faultless, but to me, he's still one of the better coaches in the league. That doesn't mean he's not going to make mistakes.

It doesn't mean he can't cost you a playoff series. All these guys can, but I wouldn't fire him based off a performance like this. I think it would be impulsive to fire him. I just wonder how impulsive is Steve Ballmer in this particular moment because everybody reacts to disappointment differently. We haven't really seen him with his hopes all the way up. Like the previous iterations of the Clippers underneath him were sort of like either in transition or they were the scrappy underdogs that one year trying to force their way into the playoffs or they were finally starting to build some momentum. And remember, this Clippers season started with

Steve Balmer on a rally stage in South Los Angeles holding up the jerseys with Paul George and Kawhi Leonard and talking titles. That was like the whole thing all season long. They came up with all these slogans of we over me and, you know, spotlights over streetlights and all these different things that kind of were meant to say, hey, we're not the glitzy Lakers, right? We're this substantial, you know, gritty team that's always going to be there when it counts that represents the city. Like, this was their entire branding message. That thing got completely flipped upside down. And same thing with the load management thing, right? Like all year long, saving Kauai, saving Paul George, saving Kauai, saving Paul George. You get to game.

all this time that you've had to kind of get their bodies right. Even Doc Rivers talked about winning the weight during the shutdown, right? Getting these guys in phenomenal shape so they're ready to go. You get to game seven, a fourth quarter against a team that has just played a seven-game series that was absolutely exhausting. And the two most tired guys on the court as far as I can tell were Kauai and Paul George because all they wanted to do was shoot 15-foot contested pull-up shots. So if your identity is we cater to Kauai Leonard, we did everything we possibly could to get Paul George, we're going to load, manage them, and we're the gritty team. All of those things backfire in your face and you're Steve Ballmer. Who are you? Like, what is your identity? Is it time for a

rebrand? Do you have to scrap the Zune and, like, go out and make some other different kind of product, right? Like, I think it's kind of an interesting turning point for him. How patient he can remain through this gigantic disappointment will say a lot about who he is as an owner. And I guess I'm actually kind of on your side, Rob, where patients might be a good idea right now and, you know, moves might be the better approach rather than a blow-up. See, I would put it like this, though. So Cleveland, 2016, David Blatt has just went to the NBA finals. He's one of the most accomplished coaches in European history.

He has the calves at the number one seat in the conference. And LeBron says, you know what, this guy's not good enough. He's got to go. He fires Blat. Everyone thinks he's crazy. Who does he hire the assistant coach, Taranlu to come in? and Toronto did an incredible job in 2016, 2017, 2018. The margins are just so small in these playoffs series.

If you don't have confidence in your coach to make the right adjustments, then you're probably going to lose. And I think everyone would agree it was very impulsive and rash to fire David Blatt, but it had to be done. That was like one of the greatest press conference moments of all time. So I was like, I thought they waited too long, frankly. I was ready for him to be fired right in the middle of that Chicago series when he tried to call the time out.

but I hear your point. Who would you want to replace Doc, John? Do you have like a favorite in the clubhouse? I wouldn't mind Taran Lu. Actually, did in Cleveland. I think in Cleveland, Taran Lu showed he could make adjustments very, very quickly. I remember in 2018,

when LeBron went to the finals, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving, they played a different closing lineup in each of their first three series. So like Taran Lu, you went from like big to small and like series, series, series, just constantly adjusting his lineups.

And I think like, if you're going to win a championship these days, you kind of have to have that ability. You saw it in Toronto too, right? Dwayne Casey, everyone loves Dwayne Casey. I know him from Dallas. He's a assistant for Rick Harlea. He's a great guy, great culture guy.

Everyone loves him, coach of the year. Toronto just said, you know what? We need a more aggressive coach. And if you're one, I mean, obviously he didn't have Kauai Leonard, but I don't think if you don't have Nick Nurse, they went last year. I think Nick Nurse was that important to Toronto last season. I think having a coach who's aggressive and flexible in the playoffs, it's a risk, but to me staying the same as a bigger risk.

Well, I think this is probably where the advantages of having an owner like Steve Balmer probably come into play. If this is going to be an arms race for Ty Lou, which it seems like it's kind of shaping up to be because it seems like every team can use a Tyloo. I do wonder, this is where Steve Balmer opens up his pocketbook and just pays Tyloo whatever he wants. It is funny, though, because as you were talking about Tillman Fertita and the Clippers and the Rockets and just like all that difference, like I do wonder what would happen and how the NBA would be different if the clippers were never sold and balmer was in charge of the rockets like can you imagine how much better the rockets would be if they had just like had someone willing to spend on the margins in order to make this work i don't know just that's a side tangent but uh i do think like these are the these are the ways that the clippers can win

without probably changing everything about them they could win changing almost nothing about them Like, they could leave their roster more or less intact to have the exact same coach next year and win under slightly different circumstances. I think what would make me nervous about a coaching shift would be you're basically only guaranteed a two-year window here. Your first year is gone. You blew it. Are you really going to completely hard reset, which can have its benefits, but you have a new language to learn in terms of scheme? You have a new structure to learn in terms of system with a new coach potentially. I don't know what a guy like Lou or whoever they would bring in would run. I'm assuming there would be some changes.

Do you really want to completely reset and have that learning curve again at the start of the season, even though you're bringing back more or less the same team? That would make me nervous on such a short timeline. I think the best news for the Clippers, and this is kind of dark, but in terms of keeping this group together, I think Montrez-Harrel cost himself so much money in these playoffs that they can actually probably just keep them. And he, I mean, he's probably going to be still one of the higher targeted, you know, free agent, big man out there.

But again, you're talking about Balmer's. resources and everything else. Like, I don't know if I was another team and I watched those playoffs and understand there was a lot of extenuating circumstances with Harrow's family off the court and all that. But he did not look like the same guy he did during the regular season. That could actually wind up playing to the Clippers benefit because if they lose him, you know, and or Morris, those are some holes. And I think that their depth, which I had kind of thought was vaunted all season long. I was hyping it up all season long. I mean, the depth definitely evaporated in this series, don't you think? Yeah. And I mean, again,

I do wonder if we talked about this last week, I do wonder if, like, Balmer being willing to go into the luxury tax at a time when other owners might not be willing to just because of the financial situation of the league, because of all the money each individual team is lost, I do wonder if that's an advantage. And all of a sudden, yeah, even if Tres doesn't come at a discount, you keep him, you keep Morris, maybe you bring back to Michael Green as well if he does decide to opt out. And all of a sudden, worst case, you're just paying for an asset to flip at the deadline in order to make other moves down the road because they do not have draft picks. So at the very least, they do need some sort of flexibility, kind of like the Thunder basically trading contracts over and over again in order to keep the team going without actually really adding anyone in free agency. I do wonder if that's ultimately their only path to really make this thing just marginally better, which if we're being honest, it's probably all they need is.

is just minor improvements to make this work. Justin, can I ask the other guys a question real quick on something you raised earlier about Paul George? You sound pretty skeptical. Like you're in the camp that's, you know, over there making playoff P memes, it sounds like, with his Game 7 performance. And Rob, you just said you think that

not a lot has to change for them to still get over the hump. Do you still really believe that? I've been trying my best to defend Paul George for the last few years. And I think his point about how he's always on the underdog team is true. And I think both he and Harden get a little bit of excessive criticism because they're always losing to better teams, and so that winds up making them easy punching bags. But do you really trust, like if you were, you know, Doc Rivers or Tai Liu as the coach next year,

and you're rolling out their Western Conference finals with Paul George as your number two guy, do you honestly believe deep in your soul that he's going to be able to get you over the top? I mean, I felt like he had the most pressure of any player coming into these playoffs, and it did not end well at all. I mean, it ended pretty much as bad as it could end for him. Yeah, this run, I think, shook it in a different way for me personally. You know, some of his previous shortcomings, I could chalk up to this or that. You still look at the series long numbers or the playoff, the playoff long numbers,

and they would still be pretty strong overall, or he would show up in certain big moments, but not in other big moments. I think all that stuff is just kind of life as a non-superstar in the NBA, life as a second-tier, third-tier kind of star in the league, which is fine, which is kind of where he is. This run felt a little different in that way. I think you're right in that the confidence has to be wavering slightly around Paul in his ability to deliver in these moments.

And again, not to take anything away from the nuggets here, because I think Gary Harris and Jeremy Grant's defense in this series was pretty terrific. You know, those two guys, they played their hearts out. And, like, that's the reason why Paul George has a game like this, where he shoots so poorly from the field where he barely gets to the free throw line. Like, there's enough of a deterrent there to stop him that said, you want a guy who win, you know, to borrow like the Janus language that when they hit the wall, they go through it. Paul George is not that kind of guy. I think I look at it like in for a penny,

in for a pound now, right? You've made your bed with Paul George. Now you make the most of it. And I do wonder at some point, maybe when you've bottomed out, things only go up from here, right? Like, what does Paul just have to be afraid for anymore? He's already spectacularly imploded in national television, right? Like, it can't get any worse for him. I think if he learns to, like, get off social media from this, like, maybe he'll go up. He'll be in his 30s. It'll be more mature. Like, what else are you going to do, really?

I mean, that's what happened to the heat. It took just, like, a historic defeat for them to really regroup and really reset themselves and kind of, like, not feed into whatever everyone else is saying and just kind of do their own thing. I mean, I kind of put a lot of blame on the Clippers in this situation because they kind of already knew that George was here, even though that this is kind of an extreme. dream example of some of the issues he's had in the past, they mortgaged their entire future specifically to bring him along with Kauai rather than just like put up a front and just like just hold the line against Kauai. Like if I'm starting to wonder now and I'm curious what

you guys think about this, like if they would have just been better off not have, if it meant not bringing Kauai just saying no and just going forward with what they had and just like waiting for the next available superstar. Because as we've seen, these guys come up. Is this team as it was constructed before the Kauai trade with Shea and Gallo and all those other guys and you throw in like, let's just say a Bradley Beal and then you just work from there like I still think that team has a path to the

title maybe just one that isn't immediate. I think I mean I think two things can be true right like on the one hand Sam Presti had leverage and took everything like he took the whole house in that trade that is true. On the other hand I agree that they had a decent foundation. They're clearly an attractive market. They could have made a play for another

star. But as we talked about with guys like Mantra's Harrell and these other contract situations, those numbers just keep ticking. Like all those contracts are rolling over. You're having to pay more guys to keep them. You're having to, you know, so just to keep your core in place proves costly, not to mention the opportunity cost. I think if Kauai Leonard, one of the best basketball players in the world says he wants to come to your team, you move pretty much anything you need to move to make that happen. That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt in 2022 when these draft picks start coming due. But I mean, I still think this is a trade the Clippers make 100 times out of 100. Now, you can't undo the Kauai part of it because we saw last night how everyone

loves to mock the Clippers. I mean, it's just like a national pastime. And it's not even just Lakers Christmas anymore, which it definitely was Lakers Christmas last night. It's everyone getting in on it. I mean, Damien Lillard, C.J. McCollum, everybody is having a great laugh at the Clippers expense. So if you rewind a last summer and they don't get Kauai Leonard, now they're just a lot of, just the same, you know, younger brother in L.A. that nobody cares about. They never get anybody. They're the losers. All of that same mojo is around them. So I do think landing Kauai definitely gave them a level of credibility to get future free agents and just kind of change the perception of their franchise in a very important way where they maybe should have drawn the line.

And I know there was definitely conversations internally as the whole Paul George thing was going on. I mean, obviously, they needed to get slightly less fleeced by Sam Presti, right? Obviously. But they also needed to think about pushing back to Kauai and whoever else was advising him and be like, bro, we actually think Shea can really play. And it turns out that like nine years of draft picks could really be helpful for you. There needed to be maybe some exploration of alternate scenarios rather than just, you know, completely, you know, selling the house for for Paul George. Because I think that had you just gotten Kauai kept Shea and kept those other pieces and had more flexibility and you could swing some other type of trades, you're probably. in a better spot than you are right now. And you're certainly not stuck going into next year with this in for a penny, in for a pound deal where you don't feel like you have a lot of options

and you're just kind of rolling it back and closing your eyes and hoping it works. It does remind me a little bit of the Chris Paul and James Harden pairing in Houston or even their current pairing with Hardin in Westbrook where it's like, all right, you made your bed, you're kind of stuck with these guys, but you don't truly believe that they can get over the hump if they continue to play like they showed. So are you just kidding yourself? at some point? I think ultimately it goes back to Kauai because as we've seen like these best teams,

these stars are making the moves. The teams are kind of held hostage to the stars. And really the comparison is this. Kauai's a terrible GM is what you're trying to say. He's just a horrible GM. I mean, come on. Player GMs, coach GMs is tough. So LeBron carefully cultivated Anthony Davis for a year.

She said, this is my guy. This is the guy I want. He's coming to my agency. He's coming to Los Angeles. Whereas it kind of felt like Kauai went through his phone was like, Katie, what's up? Jimmy Butler? All right. PG, okay, let's do it. It felt a little more half-hazard, and maybe we're seeing the downsides of that now, whereas LeBron had it all carefully plotted out for years ahead of time. Well, one thing I do wonder is how much of

the Chaudenfreude that we're all seeing right now is because of Kauai and kind of just like the general vibe of this team going on right now. I think some of it is because Patrick Beverly just like talk so much shit that everyone is just like ready to give it back to them. But in a lot of ways to Charks's point, like the team does kind of take on the persona of their star. I think that like it's a cliche, but it's also true. We've seen it played out a bunch of times. Just look at the Lakers. I mean, as Charks was saying, like they have all of these guys who are like great in 2009 and yet like LeBron and AD is enough to really drive that team. I do wonder, there's just like this sense of joylessness about this team that I, I don't know.

I wonder if they could shake because it kind of stems from Kauai. Paul George is similar enough to this where he's kind of like, not necessarily media shy, but at the very least, well, isn't like charismatic isn't much of a vocal leader. I do think you can get reductive in this conversation because I think that could come from other players. Like, for instance, this is an apples to apples, but like, Draymond Green is the accelerant for the warriors in the way that Steph Curry may be vocally as a leader is not. I don't. I do think that you could have that in a trez, and you saw earlier in these playoffs,

when trez was on, when trez was trez, this team looked like the clippers that we all expected them to be. There was like this energy. There was just like, I don't know, it was just something to them

that felt like there was this fight in them. But I think this is the problem. When a trest doesn't step up, and if you're relying on the ninth guy on your team, something is off. And so I think ultimately my question is, is this baked into, to who they are, or is this something that they can change? I mean, I think Kauai is who he is,

and they had a hard time. They gave him a really wide berth. Like I said, they catered to his every request, basically all season long. I mean, it was a very hardened, like, treatment of Kauai with the Clippers. And I think even Paul George said it last night, I'm not sure any of them ever really felt truly personally connected to Kauai. They always talk about how he's funny behind the scenes and everything else, but which of those guys is willing to challenge him on the court? Like, you know, which of those guys, you know, is, it really has a strong personal connection with Kauai Leonard. To me, that's a completely open question. We never hear about it from Kauai. He reveals so little. You know, Doc often talks around it when he's asked those kinds of questions. Do you need to

Kauai to be more of a leader on the court? I mean, he never really answers those directly. And even last night when it was so obvious that the superstars let these guys down, right? And Doc's asked about it. And the first thing he wants to do is deflect any criticism from them. and kind of fall on the sword and kind of protect them, which is admirable to a degree, but it's also not completely honest with who needs to be accountable for this loss. You know, I just wonder if Kauai Leonard goes home from the bubble realizing how much of this is his fault, right? And I think that, you know, you're making this comparison to the heat in 2010. Well, we heard the story about LeBron not wanting to leave his house for three months afterwards because he was so depressed because he knew we let everybody down.

He knew that the critics who said he shrunk were right and all that stuff. And he comes back with a new purpose next year. Do I necessarily anticipate that from McQuay Leonard? Do I anticipate a response like Jordan after losing to the magic in 95 and he comes back and he's on the space jam set running everybody off the court and they win 72 games in the title next year? I kind of expect Kauai to come back and play 65 games and 32 minutes a night and do the same little things that Kauai always does.

And you know, you give him credit for the two titles. He's won the two finals MVP that he's won. but I do think there's a little bit more nuance needed when we look at his reputation and kind of where he stacks up all time. Frankly, I thought Duncan carried the 2014 spurs. I'm going to take that take to my grave. And I also think we need to look back at last year's Raptors

and say that was a mutually beneficial relationship. The Raptors figured out ways to kind of compensate for Kauai's weaknesses and maybe ways that the Clippers didn't quite figure out yet. Yeah, I would say like when I was younger, I used to always think, oh, if you have the best players, you're going to win. But as I get older and more washed,

I don't believe that anymore. And I like the first question I'll ask someone of the team is like, who's y'all's leader? Who leads the team? That stuff is important. Like what Kyle Lauer did last year is very, very important. Kyle Lauri allowed Kauai, can I do his thing? Whatever.

I'll handle the team. I'll get everyone in line. There was no Kyle Lauerie on this team. Forget the basketball stuff. It's just the life stuff. All right. We should talk about the nuggets. Rob's tried about five times.

Guys, the team that won this series, may I remind you? come on Rob we're trying to appeal to the mass this year not to the 100 angry people in Denver you know come on yeah all of the the legions of clippers fans have have been dying for this talk for us to kick them while they're down this podcast is is not for their hands it's for uh fans it's for their haters come on now it's true that's very true there are more of those uh so this was incredible uh the nuggets came back from 3-1 for a second time do can i give you just like before we glow about them like the the haters take about the nuggets

that you can't come back from a 3-1 deficit and be that triumphant you have to go down 3-1 before you come back from 3-1 but no Jamal Murray was incredible I thought this was one of the best games I've ever seen Nicola Yokic played

Rob just go ahead just tell us about the glories of the Denver Nuggets well I mean let's start with Yokic because and let's call him what he is which is one of the best playoff performers in the NBA right now like a two-year stretch now, the story the whole time was that he was going to be vulnerable,

that you were going to be able to exploit him defensively. They just took a pretty good crack at the number two offense in the regular season came out alive. And at the point where his defense isn't an issue against this kind of opponent, what are we really talking about here? Because this is a guy putting up incredible numbers, shooting 60% true shooting, now not just for this series,

but over the course of his entire playoff career, he's incredible. And as we've kind of danced around a lot of this conversation, he's the guy you pretty much can't double like Charx was talking about because of all the problems that it creates. And it really forces you to do some things that are outside your comfort zone that we're going to push a coach like Doc to do things that he's not comfortable with or that he doesn't want to do.

He's incredible. And to pair that with Murray, who, again, I think the on-ball defense on Murray was pretty good all series. And yet he's pivoting around a guy like Paul George and driving hard to the rim. He's making incredible plays. He's getting just hot enough to carry them in the stretches where they need it. And then you have all these other guys, the Jeremy Grants, the Gary Harris's,

who are not only hitting shots, the Paul Millsaps, who had six points and looked awful and completely done at points in this series, but also gave them incredible and necessary minutes. I just couldn't be more impressed with what the Nuggets did, to be honest. I think they deserve all the praise in the world for pulling this off because the team that we saw over these last three games to compare that with the team that we saw start the U.S. Utah series, it's just been such an amazing journey for them to get to this point. And maybe they shouldn't have started out so terribly to begin with. But where they've ended up is a hell of a thing.

I think we should start with the pick and roll between Yokic and Murray. I feel like that has a chance to be because it's been two playoffs now and there's no answer for it, right? You can't go under. You can't trap it. And you can't switch it, right? Yokic and Murray are probably like the least switchable players in the league, right? Because you have Yokic, the best post score.

Murray, a guy can score from 35, 40 feet when he wants, right? So if you can't switch, can't double, can't trap, can't blitz, can't go wander, can't go over, like, what can you do? I don't really know what the answer is to be on double team extra guys. And then Yolk makes extra pass anyways. Like, that pick and roll to me, that has a chance to be like the Steph Curry, Jamon Green pick and roll we talk about for like 15, 20 years. The thing that this series reminded me of and really brought to the light,

we've been talking for a while now about how teams are using their cap. who they're willing to pay for, who they should be devoting resources for. And the conversation for a while has been that the center position is a mercenary position. You know, you get a guy, you plug him in, and you're going to be fine, as long as he's productive in the right ways, he's versatile in the right ways. This series, to me, is an indictment of that because you have Evita Zubatsu, who is a pretty good big, plugged into a lineup of other really good players. And it's all fun in games to have that, to have Montres Harrell,

until you run into a seven-foot Serbian who just rolls over you. and if you have a specific talent like Yokic, that kind of shit isn't good enough. You really need to be prepared for these outcomes. And I don't think anybody at the top tiers of the West was necessarily looking at the nuggets in fear, but maybe they should have been. Yeah.

Here's my Yokic take. It's a little bit lighter. You guys have been breaking down the X's and O's. Look, this guy needs to get on Instagram, okay? It was charming when he wasn't on social media when he was just an all-star level center. But when you out-dual Kauai Leonard in a second round series and now you're going heads up against LeBron for a trip to the NBA finals is not charming

anymore. You now officially have a responsibility as a global icon to spread the beauty of the sport when you happen to play it more beautifully than anyone else. So I don't know if he has a cousin. I don't know if you can find one of those big brothers we always see the videos of these 350-pound Denver monsters. Can we get one of those guys to just make at Yokic, you know, and get some of his highlight clips percolating around social media. I'm kidding, but I'm really not. I do think that this is obviously his coming out party, and there's going to be a lot of people who tune into that Western Conference

finals and are like, wait a minute, Denver has a basketball team. Wait a minute. Like who is this gigantic guy? Why does he look like that? And why is he just flummixing everyone who's trying to guard him? And I think that, you know, for him, it's like, this is your opportunity to kind of, you know, show what you're about. and he clearly has great basketball philosophy underlying everything he does.

Incredibly unselfish. His stat line last night was just outrageous, hardworking on the defensive end. He's tried to make improvements on there. He held up well enough against a team that was loaded with perimeter weapons. You know, on the matchup, you know, coming into that series, I think a lot of people are thinking these guys are going to eat pretty well. And at times early in the series, they did. But Denver was able to hold up just fine in the biggest moments.

And that includes Yokic. I'm curious, how do you guys think the Lakers are going to approach Denver on both sides? Because the matchups here are so strange, right? Like Murray is like this traditional now, you know, modern point guard. And the Lakers are kind of in this interchangeable lineup where they don't really have like a pure point guard defender. You've got LeBron who's going to have his way, I think, with the Nuggets wings in a way in a method that Kauai and Paul George just didn't because LeBron will get to the rim. He will get to the free throw line. I mean, that's just a guarantee.

you've got Anthony Davis, who's kind of a strange matchup for the Nuggets front line. And then you've got Yokic where, you know, if I had to send out any of L.A.'s traditional Biggs against Yokic, I'm closing my eyes there, right? So how do you think, you know, Frank Vogel and company are going to attack this thing? I mean, you do have an absolutely iconic matchup. Yokic versus Davis. This is just like center porn. A big man porn right there.

Those two guys. I think ultimately my guess is if you're L.A., you're going to have to put AD on Yokich and LeBron on Murray and switch to screen. I think that's maybe the best chance to guard those two guys. Because, like, theoretically, right? AD can theoretically maybe guard Murray on the perimeter. And LeBron is so freaking strong. I want to see Yokich and LeBron banging in the paint.

That'd be incredible. Yeah, I look at it from the other side. Is Yokich going to have to guard Davis? I think, like, Davis could score 40 a night. And, like, one of the things I've been most impressed about with Yokic has been some of his defensive performances, both this postseason and even dating back to last postseason. I thought, like, at times he's not going to be the best defender.

You're mostly looking for him to be capable a lot of the times, but we know about the cross-court, LeBron level, Sabonis level passing and all the other stuff that he does. But, like, last night in particular, I thought he was really good. There was a times where he stuffed someone at the rim and gave him kind of a glare, which we don't usually see. Like, you could tell that he was embracing,

that level. And I do think when he's able to lock in on the defensive end, this team is different. And I also think it's a credit to some of the other guys that they have around him. I think so obviously they didn't have Will Barton for the series, but I almost feel like getting Gary Harris back into that team almost clarified what they do, whereas Jeremy Grant and Harris and some of these other guys just like fill in the defensive nuance, I guess, around some of these two superstar offensive the players in the same way that I think, well, the Celtics aren't better without Hayward. In a lot of ways, it kind of clarified what they did, at least in terms of rotations, in terms of like who they are.

Justin, I have a question for you, as like the AD Whisperer, how is he going to do against Yokic against the guy who's that big and strong? Like, how does that match a play for him on defense? I do think he has struggled in the past against smaller guys, guys who could stand up to him, well, more like PJ Talk, when I say small. I mean like PJ Tucker types who are more stout, who are able to move with him. I actually think AD is going to cook Yokic. I think like...

I mean the other way, though, him guarding Yokic. How is that going to work? I would assume that AD is the optimal defender for a guy like Yokch just because he can move with them. I mean, I think you saw in some past kind of series that if you get a bigger guy on him, you're either... You're forcing him to be a jump shooter. So Rudy Gaubert forced him to be more of a jump shooter in that first series. He pretty much stonewalled him in the paint. And I think Zubach did a better job of getting out onto Yokic in this past series.

But I think AD is kind of the best of both worlds, no? I feel like they're going to help those guys. And I feel like they're going to try to do things like, remember that one sequence where I think it was Jeremy Grant was just breaking corner threes at the end of one of the games. I feel like that's going to be what the Lakers are trying to dare the nuggets into, right? Don't you think? Just maybe it's not like hard trapping, but it's just like helping significantly on the two-man game and just kind of hoping that guys like Paul Millsap and Jeremy Grant just can't get it done. I don't know.

I think that's probably how I'd approach it. Well, I think you're wearing down Yokic in other ways too, where like the thing that the Lakers are equipped to do that the clippers weren't willing to was attacked really directly in the pick and roll. Like pick out Yokic, go at him time and time and time again. Kauai, for whatever reason, didn't want to do that. they just kind of floated through some of their offensive times. And like, they're looking for good shots. They're just kind of going about it in a roundabout way versus LeBron has shown he will pick

out a defender and he will go at you eight times in a row. You know, something that we saw the heat do with Kembo Walker. Like, that's what playoff basketball is. Is you pick one defender who you know you have an advantage against. And we'll see whether LeBron thinks he has an advantage against Yokic or not. I suspect he does. But, you know, he's going to. What a player.

LeBron can go from picking on Westbrook in the second round to picking, or Yokich, the third round. I mean, God. And great point, though. This was an embarrassing series from Kauai, wasn't it? I mean, come on. How much did this guy leave on the table? This guy left so much on the table. It's killing me. All right. I think on that note, let's take a quick break here. And when we come back, we're going to talk about the other game last night, the heat and the Celtics. All right, we're back. So when Bam out of bio stuff Jason Tatum at the rim, I felt like I felt feelings for the first time in a while. I believe it, knowing how you live your life.

I believe that. Just that type of podcast, is it? Okay. Well, I feel like I'm pretty good at remaining objective in the press box. You know, I'm a professional journalist, guys. I rarely, like, when a big play happens, I won't get up out of my seat. I was in my home, and I literally, like, yelped and, like, jumped and did a, like, a clapping thing. That was incredible.

That was, like, one of the best plays I've seen in recent history. Charks, what did you see from this one last night? night because I will say for most of that game, I thought the Celtics were going to pull that out. And then all of a sudden, bam, just completely still in Waldom and it was a different game. I will say, I did feel like, even though Miami won, I thought you saw a lot of areas where Boston could attack them. And the thing I wander is, because Miami does so much cutting off the ball, right? So much ball movement. Will Boston be able to kind of shut that off as a series goes along?

I think that's my first big question about the series. Can Mike, you saw them shut down Robinson. Can they make Bam and Jimmy be scores instead of passers? And I think that is the first big pivot point of everything going on. I mean, on that block, I think we saw the lift of the basketball gods, you know, raise Bam out of bio into the air to correct whatever it was that happened with Marcus Smart at the end of regulation, selling the hell out of that foul on Derek Jones Jr., which credit to him, like put the referees in a position where they have to call that. That was ridiculous.

but I think even more ridiculous was the body control, the coordination from Bam to meet that shot at the rim. With that so much as grazing Jason Tatum, like there was no contact between their bodies other than him just obliterating the ball up there, which is what makes Bam so enticing as a player. There just aren't players his size with that kind of body control, with that kind of coordination. It's a hell of a thing to see in a context like that for sure. Ben, Ben, were you there when Kauai had the middle finger block? I was, and I did not realize it was the middle finger block when it happened. But can I give you guys just like a full-on brag that's going to make me sound like a pretty big dork, though, with this whole band block?

Please. So I've been to every single game since the second round started, haven't missed a single game. And in these times, I've sort of, and I think I actually might be number one in the bubble in most games attended by any media member. I'm going to get that fact check by the end of it because I want that title. but in the course of going to all these games, and I've kind of come up with these little maneuvers for like how I can position myself.

So I am basically offense, defense, substituting myself from one end of the court to the other as these late games are unfolding. So like, for example, when LeBron had the block in 2016, I was at, it was an Oracle. And so I'm up in the top of the second, you know, the top of the main bowl, I guess.

So in between the first and second tier. So I saw it all unfold, but it was like, I don't even know, hundreds of feet away for me. And it was like I kind of had to squint through my glasses to really see it. Here, I've got myself a seat right next to the NBA officials on one end. And then there's a baseline seat on the other end. So like when that double overtime game was happening, I literally went back and forth between the Raptors and Celtics. I went back and forth between those two seats to kind of get the perfect angle for these final plays like nine times. Of course, all the wives and girlfriends are like, why does this guy keep walking back and forth?

than front of us after every play. This is so obnoxious. Who does he think he is? But what can I say? I can't help myself. So I was perfectly positioned for Bam's block right there on the court side view. And, you know, there's this whole question, is it the greatest block in playoff history? I mean, I think everyone loves to race to the superlatives afterwards. It unfolded so perfectly. His timing, the strength of his wrist, the fact that it was his left hand. He covered a lot of ground to even get himself into position to make that block. And Tatum really, really took it hard to the hoop. And I had been sitting there watching Tatum Brick contested jumper after contested jumper

for the previous five minutes. He missed his final seven shots in the last seven minutes of regulation and overtime. I was waiting for him finally to go to the basket. Here he does perfectly has the seam and Bam still meets him at the rim and he's able to kind to hold up. I thought it was better than Kauai's block. I don't know about LeBron's block. I think, you know, to me, that's kind of like hallowed territory when you start talking about, like, the stakes involved with the finals.

But it was an unbelievable play, and all my dorkiness paid off. Everybody can go to my Twitter account and watch the video from that sideline angle. It's just gorgeous, and you could just see right how he meets him at the summit. It was awesome. It was one of the coolest moments. The only thing better, honestly, I think, in terms of a pure moment here, the entire time in the bubble was OG shot. I think I would still have OG shot as number one, just because the past was so ridiculous. But I think BAMS block was number two.

Maybe Yokic should hire you as a social media manager. It seems like you got some good tips. Here we go. I'm ready. Now I'm making real money now. Let's go. Now, I do think the Tatum point about just how weird that last, like, I don't know, 10 minutes or so for the Celtics was, just seemed like after all this beautiful basketball, they'd been able to like pass their way through the heat zone,

which guys, I don't know if you knew this, but the heat played some zone. It's a big talking about. I just, it was so weird because it seemed like they went to Kemba because it seemed like they wanted to attack some switches. But then they were going Kemba ISO when they didn't even have the appropriate switch. And then it switched to Tatum and Tatum was I'm. I kind of think like it felt like Brad Stevens had blacked out at a certain point and was just like, let's just ISO the hell out of this.

I don't know. I think it was weird to see that down the stretch from a couple of that we're used to seeing just basically X's O's his way out of these sort of situations. Some of it I think was the lineups that Miami had out there. Like the heat are uniquely positioned. If they have to defend one possession like they did at the end of regulation, they pull all their bad defenders from the floor. And so you have Jimmy Butler, you have Bam out of bio, you have Jay Crowder.

They're adding Derek Jones Jr. and André Iguodala to that. There is nowhere to score. There's nowhere to hide. There's no matchup to pick on. Part of the reason I think we saw so many ISO specifically from Kemba is that Tyler Hero was guarding him a lot. Sure. And so if you're going to look at the heat and say there's one place against all these

really good defensive players where we could have something, it could be there. Surprise, surprise. Hero, who I think has really improved defensively over the course of these playoffs really stepped up into this moment. It's great game overall. But he really stood up to that particular challenge. Hero had a triple double almost. 12 points, 11 boards, nine assists.

And speaking of that, Justin, as the world's biggest Kemba Walker fan, speak your truth. Do you believe in this guy? Yukon legend. What's your take on Campbell eight games? Listen, I just like winners, you know, and a guy who's maybe won a national championship before, maybe almost won a playoff series with the Charlotte Horner. Those are the guys that I'm going to, but it was crazy how the only shot that this guy was able to make. And this happened in the previous series as well was this stepback jumper. I've never seen a player who has a signature move. basically go to it with this much success

when everyone realizes this is the move that he's going to get. This is like star-level shit that he's doing right now where he's been able to bounce off guys and get the shot off. On the other hand, the rest of the performance last night was dreadful. There's really, I think, a big question in Ben, I'm curious your thoughts here,

whether or not they really have to start I wouldn't say sitting, Kemba, but maybe like trying to limit his minutes or finding ways to maybe play him a little bit more off ball because there was a lot of bad there. I mean, here's the thing. Nobody wants to ramp up the Celtics panic more than I do. And there's so many potential avenues like Tatum collapses down the stretch. Kemba can't get really good shots.

He's settling. The offense is grinding to the gears. You got all these three pointers from Marcus Smart. And when you got the Marcus Smart game in the second round, you win the game. when you get the Marka Smart game in the third round, you lose the game. Jimmy powers through trucks, young Jason Tatum for the end, one at the end of the game. Here they are out executing you on the other end. I mean, all of those kinds of things would be avenues to attack a young and rising team

that really kind of hasn't been there before in terms of being on the final stage and trying to dismiss them. But I feel like these guys are so steady and they already bounced back so many times from Toronto. They're like inoculated against these kinds of criticism. so I'm not sure if that's faith in Brad that I have where I don't want to get too excited and kind of bury them before they're done. Can I act as assignment editor, though, please, for either Charks or Rob or maybe like Mike Prada's listening or Moe Dackhill? There was that possession.

Tell me if you guys remember this in the first half. So Miami goes to its vaunted zone. Eric Spolster puts up the two fingers and everybody in the building knows that they're going to the zone, right? And Boston had like 12 consecutive passes that ended up with a light. up, do you guys remember this play where it was just like pass, pass, pass, pass, a couple guys were driving and kicking, you know, moving it back out to the perimeter. I just need someone to explain to me what happened because it felt like a fever dream. It was beautiful. And I don't

feel like we get enough zone offense talk on the internet. So somebody take that ball and run with it, please. Well, this is the thing about the zone too. You know, in theory, I think it's great against teams like the Celtics. Toronto certainly had a lot of success with it. But it does tend to be the kind of thing that has diminishing returns over a seven game series, right? So we saw the Celtics has been alluded to, have that kind of movement out of the gate against the zone. What does the series look like in game five, in game six, in game seven, if the heat are still rolling out zones, and they've had that much more practice to work with? To me, that speaks to what we've been dancing around this whole time, which is the Celtics did look pretty good in this game.

They look like they had some stuff that worked. To me, if the heat are going to win, they have to get these punches in early before the Celtics can really start adapting to some of this stuff. There's also the Gordon Hayward thing. Like, how do you all feel about that? Do you have any confidence? He's going to come back. Because he can really help them, obviously. A guy with his size and passing ability and shooting ability.

Well, how much do they really need from him at this point? They're getting good production from Brad Wanamaker, Daniel Thais, some of these guys that they'll throw in for like five minutes and hope that Semi-Ojolai just like hits a corner three or two, and then you just get them out as quickly as possible so you don't screw anything up. I do wonder, I don't know how healthy he's, going to be. But if he can even give them 10 to 15 minutes, I think they're appreciably better. Well, I think you start with the Grant Williams semi-ogele minutes and you go from there, right?

Like, the heat are such a small team. Like Gordon Hayward can be a big for you in this series. It's not really that big a deal. So yeah, I would start with that kind of investment. And then if he looks good, if he's playing well, then scale it up. Yeah, I was a complete jerk when he went down. I mean, he was walking out of the building in a walking boot. And I was my first, my first thought, and I'm, you know, not trying to be a jerk again. My first thought was, well, they're going to be fine addition by subtraction. Now they know who their best five guys are, and they're just going to roll those guys down the stretch, and they're going to be great because I really like their closing lineup. So, I mean, to kind of go back to what you were saying,

you know, do you take Kamba out in certain situations? No, I would stick with that five-man group. They got you here, ride with them through the end of it. You know, if you can find a small role off the bench for Hayward, that's fine. He should be okay with that. I mean, he's obviously trying to get himself back into, you know, physical condition. I can, guess I look at it this way, though. Can they win the title without him playing a real role, right? I mean, I think to this point, not having them, not having him hasn't really hurt them. I think they could actually win this series potentially without major contributions from him. But if you look ahead to the finals, are they going to need one more guy after, you know, riding their main guys pretty heavy minutes late against Toronto, probably pretty heavy minutes in this series against Miami?

I feel like there would be, you know, some moment where just having him play 15, 18, 18 minutes. minutes a night would be, you know, potentially a difference maker in that scenario. I just took at the lineup and you think if I could roll out Hayward Brown Tatum Smart Thice, that is freaking nasty. There's no holes to attack on defense, perfect floor spacing, tons of playmakers. I want to see it at some point in the playoffs to see what it would look like. That's the group you go against when the Lakers go small with AD at the five, right? When the Lakers use that lineup that's like all six, six and above, like I feel like that's your counter. And if you don't have, if you're relying on Kemba against that group, that could get Dicey.

It's so funny that I feel like I spent hours and hours around the trade deadline trying to figure out how the Celtics could improve upon Daniel Thice. I feel like this is like his coming out party in these playoffs. Like I feel like I'm the leader of Thice Nation over here because every time he's on the court, he makes a difference. And it is surprising how the Celtics. Celtics just kind of stayed who they were. They kind of like leaned into Jalen, Jason, and his perimeter defense as their identity. And it has worked so much. I think a big part of that is we've talked about this a bunch on this podcast and I kind of want to talk about it a little bit just quickly, like how it seems like every team is sizing down. And if every team is sizing down,

the teams that, unless you're the rockets, the teams that are used to doing that are the ones that are having the most success. And I mean, Ben, you referenced this earlier, but like the were used to playing without Hayward. It's funny, like, you try to lean into this narrative of, like, Marcus Mark coming off the bench and becoming this big player. It's like he did that, like, 40 times already during the regular season. And I do feel like they're already comfortable in the way that the basketball is being played in playoffs. I mean, Tyson's foul trouble or lack of it, to me, is a huge X factor in this series. Like, I really think if I was Jimmy Butler, I would just be circling Tyson. It's like, anytime you have a chance to drive into his body or try to take him off a

dribble and just do the stuff that gets him to the free throw line, that would be like an absolutely top priority because I do think there's a real falloff when he goes off the court. What a moment for Tice Nation and yourself late in game six when, you know, Toronto goes super small and Tice is just having a dunk parade. I mean, you must have been over there with, you know, green beer in your cup and your face painted and who knows what else with. I was getting some tattoos. I was sorry, respect the arm sleeve, please.

Respect the sleeve. You've got like a shamrock on your left, you know, your lips. left arm and a leprechaun on your right arm when Tice is just going absolutely bananas. He's been awesome. And I do think his foul trouble is, you know, is something that they've got to watch out for. They feel like maybe a big short, although I like Robert Williams. I think he's, he's been, you know, really solid as well. But yeah, no, I'm with you in Tice Nation. I'll be an honorary member. A salute to Tice, too, who under different stakes, mind you, but had his own BAM-like block against Bam himself early in that game,

just took a dunk straight out of the rim. He just has those kinds of plays every game, like a couple here and there. Not a huge deal, but in the grand scheme of things, those things really add up. I think for me, like, talking about Dice and all this,

what I come back to this whole conversation is, teams are going smaller, right? It makes sense. Then there's Anthony Davis. They're going smaller with a seven-footer. And that's what I wonder, when this is all said and done, when the season is over,

we might look back and say, that was the move right there, right? When you can play small with a seven-footer at center, it's hard to lose. Well, what about Bam? Does Bam have a shot against AD? Because it does feel like he's becoming central to pretty much every series that the heat is playing at this point. He's going to have to if they're going to win.

I don't know. He's going to play a lot of minutes. I get a little bit nervous when he has the ball in his hands. I know he gets a lot of love for his playmaking. Sometimes when he dribbles, it just feels like, uh-oh, now you can just dive on him and he turns into this turnover machine. That makes me a little bit uncomfortable. Just one final quick note on this series, though.

What's been fun for me to look at with Boston and Miami is which of their players are the family section's fan favorites, right? And the wives and girlfriends, they love Marcus Smart and they love Tyler Hero. Those two guys are like the biggest dudes in the building. So I just kind of hope that we continue to get shootouts between those two. It kind of fits, though, because I feel like basketball Twitter is kind of the same way, right? like Marcus Smart's like hashtag winning place. He's everywhere.

You know, and Tyler Hero is just like everyone's, you know, younger brother who just kind of seems like, oh, this could go a couple different directions, but he's like actually coming through in the clutch, everybody's really happy for him. So that's just funny. I didn't expect that.

You know, I would have expected, you know, the love fest between Jason Tatum and Deuce to be kind of like getting the headlines or like Jimmy Butler's power moves, you know, getting the fans. Who's deuce rooting for? Justin has takes on this.

Yeah, who's deuce tatum? Who's rooting for in the playoffs? Well, don't get me started on this because I think Liam Atendikumpo jinx the whole Milwaukee Bucks run. Before he showed up, they were four and one in the playoffs. He showed up. They were one and four in the playoffs. So you tell me, the numbers don't lie. Babies are ruining the playoffs. I am on this corner, the tyranny of Cheez-It's and just like zoom-ins on this freaking baby whenever Tatum does anything. this needs to stop. Justin, I'm actually ready to join you on this corner. You know, we have an unprecedented level of access in these games.

Camera angles that producers could never dream of in a normal NBA arena, and we're out there watching a baby on an iPad. Like, that's what we got. I'll tell you, just to add a little more color, after one of the bucks losses, the baby who I just mentioned earlier was just having a screaming fit, just crying, like, just, and it was so sad because I'm not even sure, he couldn't have realized that dad had lost.

So he was just crying independently of the Milwaukee Bucks' season collapsing. And yet he's just walking out of the arena screaming, I don't have children. At this point, I'm pretty glad that I don't have children. And that, that single moment really confirmed a lot for me. Everyone said, oh, people, you know, it's so hard to be a parent during COVID, man. Like, it's very hard being a parent during COVID when you had to quarantine for a week. only to have your team lose and only to have the baby exit the arena in just a full-on tantrum. Brutal, brutal.

Okay, I've got to say something real quick. I got a six-month-old son. Don't let the haters get you down. Kids are awesome. These people are crazy. These coast to elitist, don't respect families. Have kids people. It's the best.

So has your playoff game raised during these playoffs, John? I mean, has it been a curse for you or a jinx for you? No, see, I would say I have new dad energy. because I'm up at like four in the morning, take care of my son. I'm ready to blog. It's great. You have dad strength.

Well, Tatum, Janus, late game guys with some issues. Call John. He can fix it. All right. I think that's a good place to end it here. Ben,

thank you so much for giving us the Sports Illustrated reunion we were all hoping for. I loved it. Thanks for having me, guys. I really appreciate it. Ash, coming on. That is it for us.

Thank you to John Robinson for giving us our beautiful new introduction. theme song here. An RIP to Siri, who after I think three years is no longer giving us takes, but the basketball is very good

and we're thankful to have a new song at the top here. We will be back next Wednesday from all of us here at the group chat. We'll see you next time.